Columbia Tech
Time & Materials vs. Fixed Pricing Models
Prepared by Percy Chinoy Director Customer and Business Development DCI Engineering Some time back we needed some new electrical outlets installed in our house. It was a straightforward well-defined job and we got fixed-price (FP) quotes from two electricians and...
Coghlin Companies Utilizes Customer Relationship Management for Success
Bain and Company, a prestigious global management consulting firm has done massive amounts of research supporting the fact that superior customer satisfaction directly impacts the growth of a business. By surveying customers for their satisfaction level with the...
Beginning, Learning and Improving: ITAR Registration Insight
By Rich Schulman, Vice President of Quality and ITAR Technology Control Officer and Gerry St. Jean, Manager Audits and Training. Columbia Tech has, for the fourth year in a row, successfully obtained ITAR re-registration from the Department of State. I've been part...
Columbia Tech Celebrates 20 Years of Service
Twenty years ago, the Coghlin's purchased Greenshaw Electronics in Newton, MA. Within Greenshaw there was a small value-added assembly group. Upon completion of the acquisition, Coghlin Companies focused its training efforts with its newly combined sales force...
Process Audits: How Many, What Type, and Why?
As the Columbia Tech Audit Manager I can say with all assuredness, “lots of them”! We perform process audits and “walk-around” audits, internal quality system audits and supplier audits; we are auditing all the time to be sure that we are “saying what we do and doing...
The Key to Successful Product Launch
Every project must have a multitude of goals that need to be met in order to successfully launch a product. Typically these goals are not consecutive but run parallel to each other, and most of the time they are competing for the same resources. A juggling act then...
Crossing the New Product Development Chasm
In his classic book “Crossing the Chasm” (Harper Collins, 1991), Geoffrey Moore discusses the challenges in bridging the gap between the early adopters of innovative technologies and the early majority. While visionary customers are generally receptive to a cool new...
Reducing Cost Without Sacrificing Quality for Customer Satisfaction
We all know there are many distractions to perfection. Not only are we expected to ship a perfect product, we have the added pressure to continuously reduce cost. This is a fact of life and what keeps us competitive. Reducing costs, however, should never come at the...
Working With DCI Engineering
Working at a client services organization such as DCI is often exhilarating, sometimes exasperating, but always challenging. We wanted to explore creative analogues to the work environment at DCI and asked DCI employees to share their mental images of working at DCI....